Quinn held the photo; it was all he could see. “I had already changed the film by then.”
“Where’s my son?”
“Did you call Gilman after Newberry’s body was found?”
Locke did not reply. There was nothing left there of the person Quinn had known.
“Did you think that David might recognize him from the pictures in the paper?” Quinn asked.
Locke stepped forward. “You have no idea what you’re dealing with.”
“People like Peter Conway?”
Locke didn’t look away. “I want my son back.”
“And I want my brother back, but apparently neither of us is going to get what we want today.”
“Nathan, you will call Jack, and he will release Robert, and you will both live through this. If you don’t, everything and everyone you care for in this world will be burned to the ground.”
“It’s a short list,” Quinn said. “Shouldn’t take your people too long.”
“Conway is not the worst of them by far.”
Quinn looked around, taking in everything he had built in the last twenty years. “Is that why you agreed to join practices with me?”
“You are a brilliant and dangerous attorney, my boy. Much better for you to be where I could see you. Now, call Jack.”
“Your son will die knowing what kind of man his father is. And if that is the only measure of justice we can have, then so be it. Do you know what Jack is capable of? I thought I did, but it wasn’t until I saw those pictures that I really understood. You’ll get pictures, too, in the end, I’m sure. Something to remember us by when Robert has a closed-casket funeral, which is more than David ever had. Tell me to my face, you son-of-a-bitch; you told Gilman to make sure my brother’s death looked like an accident, didn’t you? Didn’t you?”
“Of course I did! There was no other way: Newberry’s picture was everywhere. They couldn’t even get rid of his body properly. David was a very bright boy. And so are you. You don’t want it to end this way.”
“Yes,” Quinn said, “yes, I do.” He took the cell phone out of his coat’s pocket and laid it on the table.
Conrad Locke turned, and standing in the doorway was a younger version of himself—the eyes of the younger man were wide with shock.
“I asked Detective Madison to pick up Robert at the medical center,” Quinn said. “They went back to his house, and he dug out his old school yearbook from the seventh grade. You’d circled my brother’s picture. You told Gilman to torture Jack or Jimmy Sinclair so that David would get agitated and it would bring on an episode of arrhythmia. You had to make sure that it would be bad enough to kill him. When it didn’t, Gilman forced one of the other men to finish the job. After that, their silence would be certain. It’s not personal; it’s business.”
“Robert . . .” Conrad Locke said.
Madison had stood next to Robert Locke in Nathan Quinn’s darkened office for the last half hour and thought the man wouldn’t manage to go through with it. They had given him a choice after the yearbook page had been a match: be there and support his father—whom he still believed to be completely innocent—or stay at work and let them get on with it.
Robert Locke had been an irritating, spoiled little kid who had grown up to be a good man, he’d found his path in life fixing people’s hearts, and he said he’d be there to prove to them all how wrong they were. He had stood quietly in that room next to Madison, Lieutenant Fynn, and Sarah Klein from the prosecutor’s office, next to John Cameron—whom he hadn’t seen since middle school—and had listened to his life unravel.
And then the offices filled with people: Detectives Spencer, Dunne, and Kelly poured out of the elevator with two uniformed officers and, behind them, Carl Doyle. John Cameron moved through the crowd without a sound to stand next to Nathan Quinn. Detectives and officers regarded him warily. His amber gaze rested on Conrad Locke. Nathan Quinn leaned back against the edge of the long table and watched as Spencer read Locke his rights. Locke, who was first and foremost an attorney, didn’t say a word.
Considering the number of people present, the offices of Quinn, Locke & Associates were quiet as the arrest was dealt with and the suspect led away.
“Thank you for earlier, Carl,” Quinn said.
Carl Doyle shook his head. He needed to do something, to organize something or file something. He felt bereft. “What can I do to help?” he said.
“Nothing. I’m done with this place for tonight.”
It seemed to Madison that Nathan Quinn couldn’t stand to be within those walls one second longer.